Angel
by ToTheEndsOfTheEarth12369
Summary: Everything is dim, blurred, on the edge of reality, until you decide to spread your wings and fly. KurtOc
1. Chapter 1

**So, this is my first story, please be nice to me. I'm not sure where it came form but my mind works in mysterious ways sometimes, so here we go. **

**I don't own anything in this story but Angie, but it'll take a while for the comic characters and things to come into effect. **

Pain seared up my back. I stumble to get to the front door.

The lock clicked, and I pull the keys out with a violent yank. I hit my shoulder against the door, giving it a hard shove before it jerked open. The pain in my back intensified with each step into the foyer and down the hall to my right. I can hear the TV blaring from dad's office.

Empty, the whole apartment seems empty now.

Its not my fault, nothing of what happened was ever really my fault. Its not my fault that my mom decided to die. Its not my fault that my dad got so depressed. Its not my fault that he lost his will to live and waist his life on pain killers, to much work for any human being, and Jerry Springer and wishes for the day his Angel will come back to him.

Angel Faust, I hear her name more now than I ever did. She was everything her name said she was. She was beautiful, angelic, energetic, the kind of woman that shot a blow at every girls self-esteem just by being in the room. My loving mother. And now, she's dead. Almost funny, how ironic the world is.

Gram says that mom has gone to join her brethren in heaven. I'm not stupid enough to delude myself into thinking Gram is right. Mom killed herself for a reason, and going to heaven wasn't one of them. I don't tell Gram this though, I just let Gram mumble on to herself in Swedish and count the beads of her rosary. Why ruin an old woman's sorrow?

I bet you anything that when I stop fumbling to relock the front door, dad will be watching another episode of Jerry Springer, pouring over work. He will not look up and will not say hello. If he says anything at all it would be something along the lines of 'pass me the remote.'

I step in front of dad's office, first door on the right, peering in through the crack between the wall and the door to see him asleep over his mound of paper work. I don't dare go in. ever since last year, when he walked in my room without knocking at the completely wrong time, we created a silent pact that we shall never invade one another space unless otherwise told we can. It leaves me with a lot of privacy, witch leads to a lot of secrets.

I decided after mom died that secrets were a bad thing.

I slip into their master bedroom, seeking a warm bath and maybe some relief from the pain. For some reason, after mom died, I have this strange pain in two places on my back. It wasn't an aching, like a growing pain, needling like a cut. A deep, sharp pain, which males hurt to move or sit for long periods. The doctors said it was due to stress, and gave me pills to keep the pain away, but dad takes my pills before I do, then brings me back to the doctor for more.

It's a rather viscous cycle. Life is a never ending cycle.

The only thing I have found to sooth my pain is hot water. The relief doesn't last long; just long enough to last the day until I get home and the pain brings headaches and dizziness. I have learned to live with it, along with everything else. This was only a roadblock, after all. Only another rock in the way of the road of life, and like all other set backs I will get thought this one.

The steam rises and form opaque shapes in the air over the water. It is so hot it burns my feet a pretty pink. I remind myself that the hotter it is, the better I will feel. Sweat forms on my brow but I force myself into the steaming water and bask in the feeling of the sharp pains coming to an unsteady end.

I have had to get hotter as the pains are getting worse. If mom were here now, she would accuse me of having a disease and rush me to the hospital. The only reason dad cares is because he wants pain pills.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling really lonely, I remember mom. Normally I avoid thinking about her. Mom was always saying things, things I don't understand. 'We are the beautiful people, Angie,' she uses to tell me, 'God made us beautiful.' But then I realize that she killed herself. God made us beautiful, but why did he make us weak?

I slid more into the tub, letting the water come up to my nose. I am starting to get dizzy, the hot water doing something with my head. It was late, the bathroom dark and ominous in this empty apartment.

If I really think about it, the beginning of all our problems was the move. Dads business boomed here, but moms mental state did not. Holding mom here is like caging a bird, they are meant to fly free and if caged they wither and die.

'Its all in Gods plan', that's what Gram says. She was just like the politicians on TV that pretended to be righteous but only is righteous for the self. Gram is too much like mom to believe it herself. She wanted to, and for a long time did, but after moms death Gram is also crumbling apart. Every time I see her, I am afraid to touch her. The translucent ness of her skin and the thinness of her hair made her seem like shattered glass. One touch and you might just break her.

Its times like these that make me want mom's angels again. I always pictured mom when I though to angels, the way she glided and talked in that way that encouraged all people to listen. When I was younger, I use to try to mimic her. I would spend hours trying to perfect my walk and talk as mom did. When I would show her, she would say it would come in time, 'be patient, Angie, God gave you your own gifts.'

I pull myself out of the bathtub, shaking as I get to my feet and pulling the tub plug. I walk over to the sink, bracing myself on the side of the tub to wait out the spots of color blowing up behind my eyes. Like always, I will leave the bathroom before all the dizzy goes away. It's a nightly routine, from the week after mom died and the emptiness caught up to me. When things calm after storms, people have a tendency to lean towards routine.

At least that's what Miss Doolittle says. Miss Doolittle, a sweet, lively Indian woman with an always-floral pattern shirt and fake looking smile with much too white teeth. She sees me twice a week in a white room with office chairs at a youth help center and talks about my problems.

I grab a towel from the table besides the tub and wrap it tightly around myself. Its not like I am trying to be ungrateful for Miss Doolittle's help. I suppose she has helped me a little, but its not like I can be happy about it. Gram, even though she lives a world away, still makes sure with every once of her being that I make it to my help session twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I stumble out of the bathroom, intent on getting to my room and collapsing into bed. Do homework? Who has time for homework when your back is in pain? I can almost pretend it's gone now that the ache is out and the water took away the edge.

I peek through the crack between the door and wall at dad again. He is up now, his head in his hands, his once luscious black hair falling in grey tuffs around his face. When he gave off a sob, I left.

I know I need to lay off dad. I suppose its easier to blame it on dad besides blaming it on myself. Its not easy, but I once almost forgave him. Almost. Then he took me for pain and used me for drugs.

I turn right at the end of the hall, walking into my tiny, insignificant room that I pained a deep orange just to give it color. Everything I managed to shove in two boxes before dad packed us up to move is in this room, everything that I owned, in what seems like another life.

But I decided I was not going to let the past rule me, like it dose dad. After mom died, I shoved everything that reminds me of her, which is everything, under my bed. Now, when I lay down to sleep at night, I lay over everything that once made me happy and wish for a single moment that I had thrown it all away.

I lay down on the bed, curling around my sheets and not bothering to put something on. I turn towards the window. I had tragically turned my bed so I could see out the window when we moved here, seeing the nightlife of another world that I never knew. Not even now that we have been here over a year has the city become familiar to me.

Before I moved here, I never relished how loud a night can be. Even in nicer, safer nigh hood, the sounds of sirens and club music waft through the window as an uncertain curtain. I thank God for this, it makes it easier to sleep when you have sounds to rock you like water into unsteady dreams of a better tomorrow.

I sit up, letting my towel fall and grab a t-shirt off the ground, bracing myself on the bed as another wave of dizziness strikes me. I pull the shirt over, thinking that if anything stupid happens and the apartment building burns down then I would like to have actual clothing on. I turn and pop the window open before lying down and putting my head on the pillow, willing myself to stop thinking and focus on the sounds.

The dizziness is getting worse. I let it wash over me, knowing it will be gone by morning. It always is.

I startle awake, in agony.

My back rips from inside me, a bucking animal under my skin that dares to escape. I turn, then the pain comes back to haunt me as another wave of burning, skin ripping under the surface.

I scream, loud enough to wake neighbors' four buildings down. The ripping only intensifies to the point of breaking me into two pieces, one-half a girl who was happy once and another half a girl who wallows in misery. I let out another scream, but it dose not help, it dose not take away my pain.

Instead, I let tears fall, and focus on the feeling of the water rolling in rivets down my cheeks. Like waterfalls in summer, made of salty seawater that comes from pool of blue. These thoughts do me no good either, and I feel the left half of me wrap itself in endless torment.

I take my arm from around my pillow and pry my eyes open. I am sobbing at my window; the reflection on the clock reads five. I put a hand to my face, looking at the red pool of my reflection as I cry and yell. My hair a messy, damp mess and the tears add nothing to me.

'We are the beautiful people, Angie. God made us beautiful.'

My hand travels around my shoulders and over the rough fabric to my back. As my hand draws near the points of agony, there is a pulling sensation that sends goose bumps down my spine and I scream again, letting the pain lose in my voice.

My hands touch a bulge through the fabric. A tumor? A growth? The bulge is large, about the width of my fist, and it hurts. It hurts more than anything in my life, more than moms death and dads betrayal.

I run my hand down the bulge, extending from my shoulder blades to my lower back. My finger left trails of tingles as I venture down, feeling the unnatural bumps and odd texture of the bulge under my skin.

Then everything erupted, as a volcano would when it is dormant for hundreds of years. It is like that moment when every lie you ever made comes crashing down on you like heavy black bolder. That out of body experience when you see yourself scream and scream, and then you wonder who is screaming, like the child that dose not know its puppy is lying still not because its sleeping but because its dead. The lights go out in one part of your brain and the other part is wishing you could feel what is happening because all you feel is numb.

When I return to my body, its like I never left and the only thing I ever knew is pain. My bed sheets are tore by nails that I do not cut, some off the bed. I am facing the door on my side, letting the screaming stop as I clamp my mouth shut and watching the door to my room.

I feel the bulges leave me, going as if an old enemy would I silent retreat from myself. They melt back into my spine and shoulders, molding to fit the curve of my body as they settle into my rib cage and phase into my pelvis bone. When the prickling of the change is gone, I am left with ghostly reminders of the pain, the ache of over use and the pinch of a scratchy used throat.

The light in the hallway is on. I try to focus on that to make the sweaty mess of me go away. Maybe if I look at the crack at the bottom of the door forever, the light will swallow me whole and take me its prisoner.

The light is blocked y two shadows, reflected on my bedroom floor as if shadows of darkness. I imagine dad standing outside my door, wondering if he should come in or stay, hoping I will be alright, or maybe just hoping I will die and remind him of his Angel no more. Angie is not Angel, after all.

I want to scream at him. Hello, I'm your daughter, Daddy! I need your help daddy! Please come out of the darkness and help me daddy, I can't seem to pull you out myself! I am in pain, daddy, do you care? I am hurt and I need help, I think I have a tumor, and its getting worse. You had better hurry up daddy or you are going to lose the one thing that still is holding onto you!

But I do not scream these things. I cannot bring myself to care enough. The pain, the steady streams they have been for so long, is coming back to me now, a distant cry from what was only a few minutes ago.

After what seems like forever, dads shadow left from before my door. Then the light switched off and I can hear dad stumbling around back to his bed, the one he shared with mom for twenty years.

And the silence dragged on. For a moment, I think I am dead, that the light was my ticket to heaven and then I let it pass. Then the sounds of the nightlife came to my ears and I relax against my pillow, curling into a ball on sweaty sheets, and let the night rock me to sleep.

And as my eyes are closing, in the dead of night with the sounds of sirens and blackness I never remembered from the city, something whispers in my ear, as a breathe on the wind or the hush of a conversation through bookstore shelves.

We are here child, and you will not break.


	2. Running

I wake up the next morning hazy. The bed is cold, as it is when something dries in the night air. I shiver, reach to shut the window. The morning is dark and ominous outside my window, with the rays of morning being blocked by the haze of fog.

A dull ache comes up my arm from my shoulder blade. I feel like I just ran a million miles and then did a hundred pushups. I feel like my whole life, everything I have explained has been about pain. Maybe my whole life is nothing but pain, even when I did not relies it, the pain was there sitting in a dark corner waiting for me to break enough for the pain to break me.

But I will not be broken by pain. I am better, stronger than my pain. Maybe if I keep telling myself that it will happen. Don't let yourself be broken, Angie. You are strong, Angie. Don't break like your father did, Angie.

With this will power in mind, I shut the window with a bang and set off slowly to my dresser. The clock read 6:15, giving me about an hour before school starts. That's just enough time. I pull out one of my clean pleated skirts and pull on my button up top.

I throw on a long jacket, along with my knee socks and Mary Jane shoes and my outfit is complete. The best thing about going to a catholic school is that you don't have to think much about your outfit at six in the morning.

I walk out of my bedroom, stumbling in the half-light. The best thing about apartment living is that if you live on high floors, the sun meets you early, making seeing easy to do this early. I found my way to the end of the hall and turned into the living room/kitchen.

I blinked, seeing a light on. Dad sat at the kitchen counter, pouring over papers and chugging coffee from a brown mug. A coffee pot sat next to him, three used mugs were throw across the table as if he wanted to break them but could not succeed.

Dad glanced up at me as I walked in, and then flinched lightly, turning back to his papers quickly without even a hello. I try to swallow the feelings of rejection. I just stood there, trying to find something to say to him.

What I want to tell dad is how much in pain I am. I want to ask him if I can have the pain killers that are suppose to be for me. I want to tell him to come back to the surface and live, breathe air, and move on even a tiny bit enough to just wash the bed sheets I know he still hasn't washed since mom last slept in them.

I want to tell dad how tired I am. How even in sleep, with dreams it is like a normal day. I wake up tired than I fell asleep to. I want to tell him I am being drowned under a sea of cold, white, empty apartment space.

But I say none of these things. I sit on the other stool of the counter, ignoring the fact he didn't even look up. Ignoring the coffee that was trickling towards the seat I am in. I feel close to dad here, in this spot, as close as I know I will ever be.

"I don't think you should go to school today," Dad says.

I start, hitting my hand on the bottom of the counter. I hadn't heard dad say something to me directly in a week, and that was when he asked me to call Gram for him, because he didn't know her number. I look at him, he has stopped weightings and was looking at the paper as if he couldn't believe he said anything either.

"But, why?" I ask.

I want him to say that he heard me screaming. I want him to acknowledge my hurt that he might need to do something about it.

"Its late, traffic is bad. The bus will be too late to take you," was all I got.

He said nothing of last night. Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I was dead. Your daughter doesn't just go into a screaming fit and you not notice. Or maybe he was ignoring me, playing 'how far can you crack a mirror before it shattered'.

I can't stay here. The room is suffocating. The apartment that will never be home is suffocating me to the point of death. I just want to leave, just go talk to someone and forget about him and his pathetic excuse for a life.

Because dad maybe broken, but so am I.

"I think I'm going to walk then," I tell him.

Dad stopped moving, swallowed hard. He nodded once, as if that simple task took him the world, and then turned back to the paper and started weighting again. I slid off the stool, grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and made my way back to my room. I grabbed my bag, checked the clock to see 6:40, then left.

The street was cold, as usual. Clouds cover what little of the sky that would have shown, threatening rain again. I wish for the third time since I left the house I had brought leggings instead of these knee shocks.

St. Almers Catholic School for Girls sits at the end of a downtown street, a large and gothic building with arches and points at the top of huge doors. The fastest way to school from our apartment was to take town buses down town and walk a block, but on days when I miss the seven o'clock bus, I can run and still make it to first period on time.

I end up doing that today. I run past the archway front doors, into the commons area of the school and up the old rickety rock staircase into the Hallway 65. I skid into Sister Turner's first period language arts class just as she is about to shut the door.

"Nice save, Miss Faust," Sister Turner tells me, not looking up from her paperback book she has folded in her hand and turning to walk back to the board. Her black robes sway as she walks, hiding her brown hair into the cloth, her large doe eyes looking straight into the white pages of the book she is reading to the class today.

I don't respond, but give a halfhearted I-meant-to-do-that shrug. I walk to the middle of the class down the aisles of girls in pleated skirts and buttoned up blouses, taking my seat next to Marci Jones, next to the window.

Marci Jones is my best friend here in this messed up excuse for a city. She is a tall, skinny, beautiful girl with dark skin, dark eyes, and a light sense of humor. She is one of those girls who stick a straw in their cleavage and asked a nun to call her lemonade. For this reason, Marci is infamous at our school, and all the students loved her.

"Hey, babe, you ok," Marci asks, leaning back in her chair and not caring that everyone in the class can see up her skirt. She has a light hearted smile on her face, despite the seriousness of the question. Its her style, I suppose, to ask the serious questions and still smile like its nothing.

"Just fine," I tell her, smiling out of the corner of my eye.

"Ladies…" Miss Turner sent us a warning signal and glare from the front of the room. Her hand is frozen in space from where she was about to flip the page.

"Sorry, Sister, Angie was just telling me the reason she is late was because she was running around the block with John Hooker." Marci said in complete innocence.

Sister Turner looked scandalized, but said nothing when she relished the comment was completely innocent if taken the right way. This is why the nuns hate Marci; she knew how to get around the rules.

The other girls in the class giggled, about ten of us considering how small the school is. Everyone loved Marci; she was the class idiot and never got in trouble. This gave Marci some form of respect among the student body.

The rest of the two hours we were stuck in language arts went much as every normal day at school would. Marci made inappropriate jokes about 'the Doll house', a book we are reading, and Miss Turner could do nothing about it. We pass notes and scribble stupid pictures into the class collection of books.

The bell blared, one of the old ones that you can still see the knocker hit the bell.

"Angie, I need to see you after class," Sister Turner calls, not looking up from her desk as we leave, only letting a hand shoot out from behind her book and letting it fall like a weight on my shoulder. It sends a wave of uneasiness into my body. Her eyes burn into the pages as if her simple brown eyes could burn the pages into ash.

I sighed, feeling the fatigue hit me already. I turn away from her, "Yes, Sister," and look to Marci for some type of moral support. Marci gave me a gagging look, and then motions to her wrist as if she is wearing a watch and motions to the door. I nod and walk up to the front of the class.

Sister Turner is a nun with a very big nose and a flat face. Marci says she was one of the women were no man would touch her, so she became a nun instead. I wouldn't go as far as to say that, but its obvious that Sister Turner makes an effort to be unattractive, despite her big doe eyes. Now that I am closer I can see all these things, and more from the contours of her face. She looks slightly angry, but I'm not sure what I could have done to make her angry with me.

"Yes, sister?" I ask her.

"Ah, yes, Angie dear you were late for my class this morning, is there anything you would like to tell me," then she lifted her head from grading papers to look me in the eye with the look of utmost sincerity. All the anger melted away as if it was masked behind a screen.

"No, sister," I hate lying.

"Hm," Sister Turner looked at me with that knowing look only teachers have, "dose this have anything to do with your mother, dear?"

She says 'dear' like acid that drips from her lips. I feel a twinge of annoyance. Yes, Sister Turner, this has everything to do with my mother. I hate it when the nuns pull the mom card.

"No, Sister Turner, my mother is fine," I say fast, stealing a look at the door.

Sister Turner goes sour in the face, like she sucked a lemon, and then she smiles so sweetly that she could have ripped my heart out with that one single look. "Angie dear, how can she be fine?"

I stop breathing, relishing my mistake too late to take it back. Sister Turner gets a look that she understands something. She takes my hand, the right one that is not gripping my library book as if it's a life line.

"Dear, I know times have been hard, but I want you to know that we are here, that you can tell me anything," She says. I feel as if bugs are crawling up my arm from where her fingers are digging into my skin. Her hand is to tight. I feel like she could break it. I get another uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Yes, Sister, I know that," I answer, but its not irritated like I want it to sound.

"So, dear, why don't you talk to me now?" she asked, leaning forward, squishing my hand. I glance at the door, suddenly feeling the four walls of the room constrict. I have a problem breathing.

I don't answer. Something about Sister Turner changed, mutated into a bigger, more threatening being. She gave me that nun smile, that made the black of her head dress look grey and the light in her eyes turn darker then the blue there.

"Why don't you tell me about last night?" she asked.

My blood ran cold. How dose she know about last night? Why is she asking me? back pain and tumors that melt into the skin aren't any of a nuns business, by God she would think I'm crazy if I ever told her that I was having strange growths pop out of my back. And that she knows that. How does she know that?

"Nothing happened last night." I stated, more firmly than I intended.

Sister Turners face screwed up in a fashion that I only ever seen Gram use when I would lie as a child. But she doesn't seem to be looking at a child. Her eyes are not doe eyes anymore, they survey me as if I am an animal.

"You don't have to be afraid dear, there are others like you, and we want to help you," she purred to me, the smile changing into a supportive, almost mind controlling smile. I wanted to say yes, help me now, but something stopped me. Maybe it was reason, why is this woman saying this.

"I don't need anyone's help. Nothing has happened." I tell her.

"Nothing yet. It will though, in time. You will seek us out when it comes," she says like a soothsayer.

I try to yank my hand away, but Sister Turner becomes suddenly strong. I yank with all my strength, but she doses not budge. "How do you know?"

"Because I am just like you," she said, smiling. Her body rippled, changing with an odd sound like steel rubbing steel. She shifted; her headdress falling away, instead of brown locks, pin straight red hair fell from her head. Her skin changed to a wicked blue, the cyan color eating away the normal skin, her eyes changing golden. I can see it though. I can see the evil there.

I scram, the screech ripping from my throat as I lunge backwards, letting my hand slip from Sister Turners grasp. I turn and run, Sister Turner yelling after me, slamming my shoulder against the door and shoving it open. The door hit the wall with a bang and I was off down the hall.

My teacher is a demon. She turned blue, she changed into a gold eyes demon. My catholic school nun language arts teacher is a benefited demon. My mind is racing and my brain is cranking out reasons and hypothesis as I navigate down from the upmost hallways and through the Gothic school building.

I feel panic. That's all I feel. It numbs my mind and my body as I run because all I see is the evil that boils behind the sincerity of those eyes. She said I was one of them. It echoes from my mind. God said, in the bible that demons are real. I believe the bible, even though I can't believe in myself. And dear God, does it echo. Demon, demon, demon, through my mind like a mantra.

My mother could see angels and I see demons.

I turn another corner, not knowing were I am running to. The halls are empty, and there is no one around. I stop suddenly, leaning against a wall outside some random hall. The math hall. Across from me is a collection of glass cases, with trophy's and ribbons from the few sports and awards that were won at this school. I can see my reflection in the glass. I search for the hints of cyan skin color, patches of skin that doesn't fit.

But I find none. My skin is the same pale that it always was. I try to calm the panic, my shaking hands, I smooth my hair down to my scalp and look around the hall for sights of the demon teacher. But I find none.

She said I would seek them out. Did she say that? I think she did, I was to busy to pay attention due to her turning blue demon on me. That was scary, that was unreal. Miss Daisy is going to send me to the nut house if I tell her about my day. Hell, I would send me to the nut house too.

My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, it might just burst. I must be sick. It must have been last night leaving the window open; I must have a fervor and be delusional. Yeah, that's it, just delusional.

"Angie!" A voice called.

I started, gasping. I whirled my head in the direction of the voice and saw Sister Ann coming towards me. I let out a sigh of relief, then relish class has started and I am sitting in a corner scared to death. That doesn't make me safe though, the hall is empty and there is no one around, but how many teachers here are demons?

"Angie, what are you doin? Class is started, I need to see your hall pass," she said.

Right, she thinks I'm here due to being out of class. I don't have a hall pass. This day just keeps getting better. But I know Sister Ann. She's cool enough that she wouldn't get me into trouble because I don't have a pass. I just have to act this off as a mishap.

"I don't…have one. I'm sorry, Sister, I was trying to get to class, and then…I got held back by Sister Turner." I tell her.

"What in the world would you to be talking about after class? You didn't get in trouble did you; you're white as a ghost." Sister Ann said, and then she reaches out her black clothed hand as if to try to check my temperature. Panic rushes into my gut as if my insides were being pulled out of my body.

"My mom," I blurted out, then clapped my hands over my mouth at my lie. Horror fills in over the panic and the guilt rushes over the horror. I just used my mom in getting out of trouble. Oh God, please how could I do that to her, to my mother, who was not here now to punish me in a way dad never would. I deserve it.

"Oh, Angie," Sister Ann put her hand on my shoulder, as if I might fall apart. She apparently thinks that I covered my mouth because I was upset, but really its because I never speak of mom out loud, only every one else talks about her. I just sit there and listen.

I give her a shrug, shrugging her hand off my shoulder and turning. I just admitted there was something wrong. In reverting to my mother, I had told Sister Ann that there is something wrong with my mother and me. Its worse than a sin. I should just let God strike me down now.

"What class is you suppose to be in dear," she asked and I flinched when she called me dear in that voice that Sister Turner used. But her voice isn't dripping with honey that's poisoned, nor is it gilded with kindness. Its just Sister Ann, being nice. And by God, if I am going to be rude to everyone then I have to at least be nice to Sister Ann.

"Gym," I tell her.

"Well," she pulled out a note pad and scribbled on it, "here you are. Just give this to Couch Lovelady and she wouldn't mark you tardy."

"Thank you," I murmur and shove the paper in my skirt pocket. Then I set off down the hall, not looking back at Sister Ann, afraid to face the shame I brought upon my mother. I turned right again and went down another familiar hallway.

St. Almers dose not have an outside gym, but an inside one that is long and narrow with high ceilings. It is connected to another room that's called the yoga room and then the changing rooms are at the end. In order to get to the gym, you have to go through the changing room. When I entered the changing room, the room was empty. I found an empty locker near the showers and shoved in my things, grabbing clothing and pulling them on. Then I jogged into the gym.

Couch Lovelady is standing at the end of the hall, watching the rest of the girls play doge ball. Her headdress flowed long over her long black gym clothing. I jogged up to her.

"Couch," I call, "I'm here."

"Bout time, Faust," she said, sounding like a man was one of the things couch Lovelady is good at. She has a twisted face made of wrinkles and lonely stretches of crows feet. I always felt bad for her, because she wasn't always a nun. She was a married woman once, before her husband died. Then she became a forever virgin.

"Sorry, sister," I muttered, pulling out my note from Sister Ann and handing it to her. She examined the note, then held it up to the light as if she could see if it was fake or not. Then she turned to me with all her wrinkles all bunched up.

"What you just standing there for? Go join the game," she barked.

I jumped slightly, the image of a blue monster woman popping into my mind. I didn't say anything else, nether did she, and I was off to find Marci, wading into the sea of girls in long red gym pants.

Marci stood at the side lies, talking to Vikki and Nikki, twins with crazy red curls and smiles to match. Marci was being very animated, moving her hands in explanation.

"Marci, hey," I call to her.

Marci looks up, "Oh babe! I was waiting for you I was but then Sister Ann came around and made me leave! Then I heard this scream and I tried going back but it was no use, you know Sister Ann. Dang, babe, what happened? Your white as a sheet." Marci said in one long sentence with no breaths.

Do I tell Marci our language arts teacher is a devil? She would believe it.

"Nothing, she was…just talking about the late thing this morning." I tell her.

"But…Angie you weren't late, you made it in time for the bell." Vikki, or Nikki I can never tell the two apart, said, exchanging glances with her twin. They are what I would call Irish twins, with bright red hair that is styled into perfect ringlets and bright green eyes to match each other's. Nikki pops her gum.

I choose to ignore her. The court echoes with shouts, the echo of rubber dodge balls shifting through the air and off the walls, the fierce girls hurling them through the air with the force of small typhoons. Marci glares at me slightly, as if she knows what I am thinking and refuses to believe me either. But at the moment her mouth opens a ball hits the wall right above us, causing everyone around us to scatter like pidgins. Marci turns and flips them off.

She turns back and all is forgotten.

Bela comes walking up to us, her face shoved into a biology textbook. She is a long faced Indian girl, who come from India with her parents to start a company involving some kind of chemical. I don't really think she is even catholic, but it doesn't really matter if you are or not. The nuns take you in anyway. "What did you get for the biology homework?"

"You actually do that?" Marci asks, giving her a finny look that's rather condescending. The twins giggle. Bela gives Marci a tired look, which is their way. Marci doesn't care about her grades, and Bela cares to much.

The twins launch into stories about their weekend, finishing each other's sentences and cutting each other off. I relax against the wall, folding my arms, cocking my head to the side with my neutral expression. It's my normal stance, my school Angie.

My language arts teacher is a demon? I wouldn't know.

There is a sense of calm in the thought, the sudden relaxation I get from the familiarity of the act. I try to focus on the conversation with half my listening skills, becoming the Angie Faust that everyone in school loved. Its not a hard transition. I use to be this Angie all the time, before my world fell apart. Now I have to try to bring her back.

Marci is rolling up her gym shorts to ununiformed lengths, showing her naturally tan skin underneath. The girls on the court run screaming as another ball is thrown by the more sporty girls. Couch Lovelady is screaming at a girl who is trying to fix her glasses from getting face planted.

One of the twins, I can't tell which, nudges Marci in the shoulder and smirks, "Marci, if you keep rolling up your shorts someone will get a lesbian crush on you."

Marci pauses in rolling her shorts up long enough to give her a smirk back, "I already have one, right Angie?"

I roll my eyes and nudge her with my foot, "We go way back."

"But wouldn't that make you a…" Bela starts to say, but her mouth twists as if she bite into a lemon and she clutches her biology book against her skirt on the ground where is she sitting. This time I nudge her with my foot.

"Yeah," Marci says sarcastically, "I am so a lesbian."

Its been like this for a while. I have known Marci since I first moved here, for some reason she stuck herself to the shy new girl when I first moved here. And I've always known her to be like this. It's just Marci's way, to be incredible sarcastic. Bela takes her to seriously.

One of the twins rolls her eyes at the expression on Bela face, and they put their heads together automatically and giggle together as if they were programed to do so, "So clueless."

Bela flushes bright red in embarrassment and then from anger. She glares up at Marci from her place on the ground, not officially angry but more annoyed. "You shouldn't says things like that. We are in the house of God."

"We're in a catholic school."

I turn away because I hate this fight. Marci isn't the best catholic. Maybe she isn't even one when she thinks about it. But Bela is a very good one, besides not really growing up in a catholic home. This is an old fight. One I don't want to listen to anymore.

Marci throws her hands up in the air and look to heaven as if she can actually see it, "Father forgive me for I have sinned, I've been such a douc bag lately…"

I watch the dodge ball players move around the court like ants running from giant human feet. I never liked sports much. I was never good at them. I use to be able to run a six minute mile, but I haven't tried in so long I'm not sure if I could anymore. Marci was always good at sports, and use to participate in gym, but after she discovered freedom and drugs she stopped playing anything. Couch Lovelady still tries to get her to play on the school volleyball team.

"Who's that?"

I look over at everyone else, how are silent and looking towards the entrance to the gym. A red head young woman is talking to Couch, her long flaming hair swept into a low ponytail. Her face is beautiful, longer and a rounded chin. She is tall, with khaki long pants and t-shirt with long sleeves.

Marci growls playfully in her throat, "That's no catholic school girl."

The twins giggle and Bela gives us all a look.

The woman points to where we are standing. Something in her expression makes me tense, makes me feel incredibly on edge. I look away, suddenly loosing what little calm I had. I wrack my brain for her face, trying to remember if I know her from somewhere. Nothing comes to mind. Maybe she knows one of the other girls.

I look around at the other girls, but the twins are talking to Bela with lots of animated hand movements about something of no importance and Marci is still staring at the woman. I follow her gaze. The woman sudden looks up, as if she knew I would look at her, and her eyes fall onto mine like a gale force wind. Her eyes are green, with nothing evil to them, but she has a power around her that I cannot deny and the feeling that comes with it is fear. She is powerful and I know it, and that scares me.

I turn away, only to find Marci staring at me with a serious expression that I have never seen her use before. Is it worry, anger, or fear? I can't tell. "Do you know her?"

I've never seen her gaze more serious, "Don't think so, why?"

And she all at once loses the seriousness, and she is herself again. She smirks as if that could play off the uncertainty of the situation or as if she could chase away all my fears with a hand to the shoulder, "Just wondering, is all."

I narrow my eyes at her so that she knows I know she is onto something, "That's not true."

Marci smirks at me, looping an arm into my own and pulling me away from the group. I glance back at the others, but everyone else is unconcerned by the power radiating off the woman. I want to tell them that they should be.

Marci says, "Hey, you know my policy. If they aren't in a pleated skirt, there's no reason to worry about them."

"I thought your policy was bros over hoes?"

She shrugs it off like its no big deal. Knowing Marci, it isn't. "We're teenagers, Angie. We go through hormonal changes."

I stop walking, looking at the far wall we are no rather close to. Next to us, the girls are playing fiercely, like lions on the prowl. "What do hormones have to do with policy's?"

She rolls her eyes, leaning coolly against the wall, "everything, Angie."

"You know her don't you?"

"Actually no, but she wears khakis and you can't trust girls who wear khakis." She says and points in the woman's direction but doesn't look at her. I glance back, spotting Couch Lovelady glaring at Marci's shorts. The young woman is staring at Marci too, which I can understand. She is pointing at her.

"Since when did you judge?" I ask her, turning back.

"Look, she's giving me a bad vibe," Marci says.

If only she knew about bad vibes, "She looks fine."

"Besides the khakis?" She murmurs.

I was about to answer, but there was a scream "Heads up!" Right behind me and I don't get to turn to see what it was. I hear the woman scream "Watch out!" and then something rubber hits between my shoulder blades in full force that it knocks me off my feet. One minute I am looking at the wall and the next second I am looking at the ground.

Pain explodes like a searing fire down my spine, and I open my mouth to scream but I don't know if I am. I can't hear myself. I can't hear anything. I am on my hands and knees, my back splitting in two as something feels like its tearing from beneath my skin. I fight the feeling, trying to keep whatever wants to come out inside, but it comes like a frights train and it rips between my shoulder blades.

I see spots. Red and green and blue. I see things through them. Marci is kneeling in front of me. Couch Lovelady's red and blue striped sneakers. The young woman is in front of me and I can hear her voice over the steady rhythm of pain.

"It's all right. I know what you're going through, and I promise it will pass soon."

My mind flashes to Sister Turner, the demonic eyes and the devil blue. I pull away from them all, from the hands and voices and thoughts and memories. I stumble up, moving away from the people. I glance up to see the woman staring at me, coming forward.

I turn and run.

I leave the building.

I can't stay. I can't bring myself to face the rest of my classes, especially not bible class. Not with a demon in the school. Not with the woman there too. Not with anything that has happened.

So I run. Run for so long that I don't know where I ran to.

I settle on a bench. It's a red bench in a block covered in trees. The sunshine barely filters through the fog. I wish it was sunnier outside; maybe then the mood wouldn't be so horrible. Maybe then I would cheer up a little but the weather has been like this for weeks, sulky and sad and everything in between.

People pass the bench, going about their lives as if I don't exist. I can imagine myself melting into the bench and becoming a part of it, and maybe that's why they seem to not see me. Maybe its because I'm not here at all.

Sometimes, I think I died with mom. Sometimes I swear that I wake up in a coffin, with red trim and white silk blanket, and that I'm lying on my own bones and decay. Then when I look around I see that the decay smells like moms perfume and the bones were wearing her favorite blue dress. Then I would claw at the top of the coffin and scream and scream…

That's my worst nightmare, from those fragile few weeks before the pain started and the nights were the hardest time to live. I haven't had it since the back pain, but it still haunts me, even now as I watch the people ignore me.

How long have I been sitting here?

"Excuse me?" I jump and look sideways, at the woman from gym. She is smiling kindly, her hands rubbing nervously together. As soon as I notice they stop. I look back at her face. "Hi, you're Angeline, correct? Angeline Faust?"

She seems kind enough, but I know to never judge a person based on their looks. I can see the vibrations of the power around her, like an aura of green. "Who wants to know?"

"Oh, I'm Jean Grey." She says, sitting a respectful distance on the other side of the beach. Her hand shots out for me to shake. After a moment of hesitation I shake it, but the contact makes me feel like she can see straight into my soul.

"Angie," I tell her, then pulls away so she can't see into my soul. She doesn't know me. Myself is my own and no one else's.

Her face is soft-understanding?-and she turns to look over at the people passing by. I'm not sure if its awkward or not, but the silence is prying, like she's trying to find something hidden inside me. Why is this one person able to see me when everyone else passes me by? How can I be so open with her and no one else can see things?

"I came to see if you were ok."

"Well, I am."

"Really, Angie?" she turns to me now with such intensity in her green eyes so that suddenly I feel that I'm not as invisible as I feel. I suddenly feel eyes on me that I never knew existed. How long has it been like this, with others staring at me? How long has it been since she could see into my skin and soul?

"Yeah, really," I tell her, pulling down the cuff sleeves of my button up shirt to cover as much skin as possible. My voice sounds harsher than it should, and Jean Grey looks away, and for a moment I feel bad before I remember her seeing into my soul.

"I'm sorry," she says as if she can read my freakin mind, "It's just that you looked in pain back at the gym. Miss Lovelady was worried about you."

"Well I took a dodge ball to the back," I mumble, flushing because that's just embarrassing. I get hit with a dodge ball in front of the beautiful Jean Grey and then Lovelady sends her to find me? What kind of crap is that? Why isn't Marci here or one of the twins? I don't even know Jean Grey, "That's tends to hurt."

But I'm no longer sure if I'm talking about the dodge ball or not.

We both know that the pain was worse, looked worse, than just simply getting a dodge ball to the back. We both know I was in worse pain than was worth a dodge ball, but thankfully she doesn't say a thing about it. I glance around trying to find the eyes but they are nowhere to be found.

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

"Does your back feel alright?"

The pain is numbing down to a dull ache, but its taking longer than normally. That could only mean things are getting worse in that department, but I wouldn't tell her that. I have my pride. "Yeah, I'm fine. Really, you can tell Couch I'm just dandy. I'll be back before the hours up."

"You aren't coming back now?" She asks, and I see her eyeing me almost untrustingly from the side.

I'm not sure why she is even concerned about when I am coming back. I'm also not sure why she is still here. Maybe Marci was right, there is something you can't trust about this woman. Something hidden beneath her bones that is a bigger secret than I care to keep. And secrets are not to be trusted. "Are you a new student?"

Surprise registers in her face, but she is supposed to be able to see into my soul, so wouldn't she know about that question? "Oh, no I'm not. I have business with the school."

I switch my gaze out onto the sidewalk. An ant crosses over to the other side. I watch it cross with some wonder I'm not even aware of. "What kind of business?"

I expect a none-of-your-business, but instead she leans forward and gives me a comforting look, "Angie, you know I only want to help you, right? I understand what you're going through."

She sounds like a therapist. Like those stupid counselors or Miss Doolittle, who sits around all day and try to pretend they know what's going on in my mind. Even worse is the doctors who think moms mental problems have passed on to me. But I guess this is different, because Jean Grey is close to my age and she seems to get something that not even I understand just yet. But that doesn't make her anything less than a stranger. I've never even meet her before.

"Your mom killed herself too?"

I'm not sure why I said it but it comes out before I can stop it. And a million emotions flood through my veins at the second time today that I used my mother in such a horrible way. I shouldn't even trust Jean Grey with this information. I shouldn't be throwing it around. But for some reason not even I know, I want to genially know. I want to know if she knows more about what I am going through then she thinks.

A million emotions cross her face too, and she flinches and turns away from me. Guilt and regret smooth over her features, and thankfully I do not see pity there. She studies her hands, "I'm sorry about your mom. Truly, I am. No one can understand something like that, not even me. But that's not what I'm talking about; I'm talking about the physical changes."

I lean away from her to put some distance, but the bench is only so big and I only have so much room. Anger catches in my throat but I bite down the words I want to say. It's not Jean Greys fault she doesn't understand. It's not anyone's fault. I wouldn't wish this life on anyone. She doesn't even understand the physical changes. All it is, is pain. That's it. Its really none of her business just as much as my mom isn't either. I shouldn't have said anything at all, "There's nothing wrong with me."

"No, of course there's nothing wrong with you," she says, leaning forward again as if this particular conversation is well known to her, going through familiar motions, "Your just changing, is all."

"What do you know about it?"

"Believe it or not, I went through a lot of the same thing. One day I just woke up with these powers, and don't worry, I hated it too." She says and smiles hesitantly at me. But I can't even think of smiling her back. Because I don't have powers. Only pain.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I tell her coolly, frustration at the amount of confusing things happening today. First with last night, and dad actually talking, and the demon in my English class teacher. I didn't think that demons could enter Gods house. I guess I've been wrong about a lot of things.

"But it's happening Angie. Sometimes it's different than other peoples but it's all the same thing-"

"So now you don't know what you're talking about."

She pushes her lips, glancing to the side and looking longily at the trees as if searching for aid that will never come. I pull my jacket more around me and stand, because this is all useless. This girl is out of her mind. I don't need to listen to any of it. Jean Grey is insane and has nothing to do with me. We have nothing in common-

"-but we do have something in common, we actually have a lot in common. We have abilities, things that make us special. I would show it to you, but there are people around. But I know you know what I'm talking about, like last night."

I feel myself tighten up like a screw, "Last night was none of your business."

"No, it isn't. But I want to help you through it. Together we can-"

"-I don't know what you're talking about, so you couldn't help me-"

"-but I can!"

"You're lying," I growl at her, digging my hands into my pockets and turning away from the madness. I'm not even sure if it matters that people are around, because she obviously has nothing to show. Just like me. It doesn't matter. She is just another demon, perhaps. Marci was right, I shouldn't trust her or even give her the time of day. I want to go home. I want to run and get away from these demons.

So I run. For a second time today, I run. My skin crawls with eyes, unseen eyes that watch me like hawks form behind buildings and in shadows. I can hear Jean Grey yelling for me but I ignore it. I have to. My mind feels like it's going to explode, my back will eat itself, the world will shrivel up and die an untimely death by God. I can't let these things happen, and its hanging by a thread so tightly that I feel if I don't not run then they will all happen at once so I do not even get a chance to try to make things right again.

So I run to save my mind from explosion, my back from imputing, and the world from shriveling up on itself. That makes sense, right? Of course it does. Everything makes perfect sense. I just have to keep running, and I can outrun the problem.

And I run and I run. I'm not sure where to go. Where does a girl run, when there is nowhere safe to run to? I can't go back to an empty apartment, and not back to school. So there's really nowhere else. That leaves a hallow feeling in my chest that I can't quite place, one that burrows into my soul. Where does one go, when they have nothing at all?

My feet wonder, but the evil eyes are still on my back so I know I am not alone. My feet wonder. My back aches like some ball was being dribbled against it consecutively. I focus on that. Some random man tries to grab my ass, but by some force of nature he stops, straightens, his eyes glassy, and walks the other way. I watch him leave, then watch the sidewalk that he left by until drops of rain fall from heaven.

I end up in front of the therapy office. I climb the stone steps. The air inside the front lobby hits me in my face and my hands seem to thaw out from the cold. The lobby, as always, is orange and white, with towering ceilings and black accents. I want to sit on the couch, curl into a ball and die. But instead I walk over to the front desk and lean over the counter, looking at the check in lady.

I don't know this woman. I normally come in later, so I catch the later shift woman. This one is older and unhappy looking, with tons of makeup all in the wrong places as if she was trying to appear younger. She glances up at me over her glasses.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes," there is a moment of silence as I try to figure out why I came here and more importantly what my name is, "Yes. My name is Angeline Faust. I'm here to see Doolittle, er, Dr. Doolittle."

She looks back down at the computer before her, meaty fingers clinking on the keys, a sound that seems to echo across the lobby. I almost flinch with each little noise that is sent to the far wall. She looks back up at me with a critical look, almost like she is checking my pupils to see if they were dilated. "Your appointment isn't until this afternoon."

"It's an emergency."

"She's with another patient."

"Doolittle told me that I could talk to her anytime I need to," I tell the woman, who isn't even wearing a name tag-what a crappy employ- and then I lean forward and point to the phone. "I need her now."

She glares at the phone, then switches her eyes almost accusingly back up at me. She removes her glasses and uses the collar of her suit jacket to clean them, "Shouldn't you be in school, sweaty?"

"Yes," I tell her, irritation knowing at my gut, "But I'm obviously not, which obviously means something bad must have happened that I need to talk to Doolittle about. It's an emergency. And I don't think you want to be responsible if something bad happened, do you?"

The woman pushes her lips together, glaring at me slightly as if everything in the world was my fault, and then she picks up her phone, dials a number, and waits. Waits forever. Then she sniffed and told the person on the other end of the phone, "Send me to Eleanor."

There is more silence. I survey the people walking outside the building. My eyes fall on one man, a man nonchalantly leaning against the building on the other side of the road, half concealed in the darkness of the alleyway. His hands are shoved in his pockets. I see the glint of bright red where his eyes should be.

"Yes, hello…I am dearly sorry Doctor, but Angeline Faust is here. She says she has to see you. She says it's an emergency."

Another silence. The man starts to walk forward, eyes glittering bright red in the half light from the lamp post. I grip the garnet of the desk and wish it all away, and the man suddenly stops. He waves, almost like he is trying to wave at a friend. I let out a breath. He is only looking for a friend. He may not even be looking in here. It's all fine. I was over reacting.

"…she's adamant. She says that something bad will happen if she doesn't see you right away."

I hold my breath. The man takes slow steps across the patent and into to street, almost like he has his eyes trained on a single animal in a forest and is afraid to big of steps would scare it. I swivel around to the woman, in a panic, and meet her confused dark eyes. She stares at me as if I was crazy. I don't blame her. I would too.

"You can go up," she says, but she hasn't even hung up the phone and I can hear the voice at the other end talking away with other voice in the busy background. I don't stop to ask. I dash across the marble floor to the elevator, slamming the button three times, and waiting for it to open as the seconds tick by into oblivion. It slowly, so painfully slow, opens and I slip into the elevator and slam the close button. The man from the street is gone, but for some reason I'm having doubts that he was even there in the first place.

I watch the buttons on the board move up. I let my shaking hands fall against the walls and I try to calm my breathing. I want to curl up into a ball and die. I want God to stop punishing me. Is it not enough that I am trying, or at least trying, to move on and come back into life? I'm so afraid, that I would do anything to get out of all this mess.

The door opens and another kid, one with dread locks and huge gadgets, passes me and settles in the elevator. I don't look at him anymore that I need to. The office building is a long hallway, with doors on each side leading to age separated pediatric care. I can see Dr. Doolittle, standing outside her office door, a crease in her pretty brow.

She is tall, looming tall, and a good bit plump, but still beautiful in an old classic Hollywood way. She stands like a noble woman, her arms folded and posture straight. It's something I admire about her. I admire a lot about her.

I slip past her and collapse on the yellow couch that's positioned against her window. Her whole office is yellow, the walls and the calendar and the crayon drawings from the little kids on the walls. I use to get lost in those drawings, before I realized how awesome Doolittle really was.

She sits in the arm chair across from me, propping her feet up on the table. The gesture that normally relaxes me is not enough to relax me today. I glance out the windows, searching for the glint of monster red eyes. There are none. The street is almost empty. I shift on the couch.

"You seem on edge." Doolittle says, understatement of the year. I let out a breath, "How are you feeling?"

I try to pinpoint a word for what I'm feeling. There is none. There's nothing I can say that would describe what I feel. What I can feel is the fear, the worry, the ache in my joints and my back. I feel a million years old. "I don't know."

"There has to be something. You're not a rash person, so this whole thing," she motions to the air with her hand to signify for everything, but instead it looked like her swatting an annoying fly, "Is very unusual for you."

That's another understatement. I give a shaky laugh, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Then why did you come?"

I think for a moment, "Because I don't have anywhere else to go." I stop because that sounds pathetic, and I don't want to seem weak to Doolittle. Not after all the fight I put up to not get close to her, "And I trust you."

She sit back in her chair, as if she just proved an important point that I need to know and now that I think on it she problem just has. I do trust her, after all the shit we have been through. But this whole thing is nuts, even for a child psychologist.

But I lean forward anyway because trusting Doolittle is all I have left now that I am here and I need to tell someone that I'm not crazy, and Doolittle has always told me that I can tell her anything. "Last night…I had some kind of episode. I think the pain, it's a disappearing tumor or something. Anyway, my language arts teacher, Sister Turner, she knew about it. She kept saying things…she said I was one of…. And then she changed."

She looked at me calmly, but I can see something around her moving almost like the way ripples move around a pebble dropped in water, "Changed…how?"

"She…" I try to find a word for the change without sounding crazy. "Her skin changed colors. And her eyes…the pigment changed. She changed into a demon, Doolittle. A real one. She… look she even grabbed my arm."

I roll up my sleeve to the blue black bruises from her iron like finger around my upper arm. The finger marks are small and spread out, and I can almost see the cyan skin latched around my arm, devil gold eyes glaring into mine with a false sense of security. Doolittle sucks in a breath in, but her face remains neutral.

"Have you been taking your medication?"

"There is no medication."

Now she really looks at me as if I was crazy, like some alien creature that grew wings and tried to fly. Her eyes flick down to the blue black bruises on my arms, and then back up to me, "I gave your prescription to your father-"

"-and I never get the medication from him. Look, there are more important things happening here besides the mystery of the nonexistent meds."

She shuts her eyes for a moment before opening them again and my mind races like a car on the race track, squealing across the cement. "I think that the things you are experiencing are happening because of your missing medication."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Sometimes depression can cause hallucinations-"

"-I don't have depression." I demand from her the same feeling that's bubbling in me, panic and confusion that moves around my stomach like acid. The feeling of security and safely evaporating like water that's been put in the hot sun. I search for the answer in her face, but she remains mostly natural. I can't tell what's she is thinking except for the worry lines in her brow.

"Yes, Angie, you have a severe case of manic depression. That's what the medication was for, to help you in your fight against it. But now that I know you aren't taking it…"

"-that medication was for my pain," I tell her, but she is supposed to know this. She is the doctor. She gave me the prescription.

"No," she says, "Not exactly. It treats your symptoms, such as the fatigue."

"It's not fatigue," I tell her, "it's much worse."

She looks at the window briefly; her eyes have tons of questions in them, "Why has your father not given you your medications?"

The irritation knags at my gut and I'm ready to let loose a storm of screams and yells that in no way will make sense to her. All she is focusing on is the medication when I am having a crisis, a real time crisis. All that comes out is, "Because he's a shitty father that takes his daughters drugs. Now can we please get back to the demon language arts teachers?"

Doolittle is slightly taken aback by that answer, but I am to far gone to care. The pain and the events of the day are boiling over. "Angie…it takes a lot of stress for the body to start experiencing hallucinations."

"I'm not seeing things," I tell her, "They were real."

She stares at me again and I feel my face heat up like a frying pan by the deep, horrified look on her face. "That's …have you seen anything else that's unusual?"

"I'm being serious Doolittle." I tell her, "She said I was one of Them. Then that Jean Grey said that I was one of Them too and then the man in the street."

"Who's Jean Grey?"

"That girl that's been following me all day," I tell her and think of how she seems to read my mind, "Like a freakin stalker, then I got hit with a dodge ball and then she caught up with me in the park."

"You were hit by a dodge ball?"

"Yeah, right after I saw the demon," I tell her, but then I thought of how stupid that sounds. "Anyway, the demon was real. And so is Jean Grey."

"Is she here right now," she asks, leaning forward and giving me the therapist eye.

"No, why would she be here?" I ask, and look around the room as if I could see her, but I can't. There's no way. She wouldn't be here because she doesn't know I go to therapy. No one does. She can't bother me here.

"Angie, sometimes people with psychological breaks see things that aren't real. They are called hallucinations. Sometime, to the one seeing them, they are quite real. Sight, smell, sound…they can even be tangible. They can be caused by pain, fever, stress. Drugs, anything."

The blood in my veins runs cold and I feel myself flash back to those moments when I saw the demon, when I noticed Jean Grey, the talk, the pain. I remember every bit of it but it was so real, real enough to be reality and not be a hallucination.

Doolittle leans forward and her hands clasp over mine, "What else happened? Angie, this can turn out to be very serious. You could be the one hurting yourself and if you aren't lucid in them then we need to make sure no one is taking advantage of your state or you aren't hurting anyone else. I need you to tell me what else happened."

I don't want to tell her anymore. I don't want to bring up anything else that happened because she will tell me that none of it was real. I know what I saw. I don't want to trust her anymore. I don't want to trust anyone. I can't. There isn't any way. "Nothing."

I'm not sure what I even expected from coming here. What could a psychologists do but tell me the psychological explanations to my nightmares? She wouldn't understand what God has been doing in my life. He is punishing me. And I am not longer sure what to do. I'm out of options. There's no one I can trust.

But the answer I was looking for isn't here. Not in this clinic with this woman who relies on logic. I have to find someone who understands, or somewhere to go in a world that isn't as free as everyone thinks. There are still things that she being controlled.

She looks taken aback, "Angie if your father is taking your medications-"

"It doesn't matter-"

"But it does."

I stand. The room constricts on me as if it is made of snapping rudder and I feel as if it was snapped on my shoulder or around my mind. I want to scream and shout and Doolittle doesn't seem to understand that. She sits silently as I stalk over to the other side of the room and plop down on the ground.

"Why don't we talk about Them. Who is Them?"

"I don't know." I say, but there is nothing else I can saw. I stand and walk back over to the door, out the door ignoring for the second time that day the yelling of someone of my name, and then running down their hallway out to the elevator. My mind is panicked. I see things in flashes, Doolittle, a patch of carpet, the elevator numbers, the orange of the lobby, police men.

Everything goes black.

…

I am outside the apartment door. I'm not sure how I got there. Who really knows? But it's a relief that courses through my veins like the medicine that I never took. Everything about the front door is normal and perfect. I run my fingers down the wood-

-the door flies open. Dad stands there in the doorway, shadows around him from the brightness of the hall. His eyes are glazed and he sways slightly. His stumbles past me, his shoulders hitting me and making me stumble back, and then he disappears down the hallway and down the fire escape.

In the apartment, my bottle of pills is spilled across the counter.


	3. The blaring Lights

I stay in the apartment. Dad doesn't come back from wherever he left to last night, and I don't bother calling him. There's no point anymore. I'll never be able to be his Angel. The only true angel died, and anyone else would only be a replica. I leave the pills spilled across the counter. I refuse to take one, even if I do have hallucinations. I will not be like Dad.

I go around and lock every window, twice. I double lock the door and call the office, telling them not to let anyone come up. The eyes can't see me here. No one can. This is my sanctuary, within walls of grey and white. And I close the blinds of all the windows so I wouldn't allow anyone to see into my sanctuary.

I curl up into a ball on my bed, and count the hours that go by depending on where the rays of light that moves across the walls. My bed is cold and damp from sweat. An intensive fire is spreading slowly through my bones, down my arms, tingling my fingers. I struggle to breath. The air slowly becomes heavy and warmer. I puke twice in my trashcan.

I feel like I'm going to die here, in my room with orange walls, completely alone in this empty apartment. I don't want to die here. Not like this. I can feel myself into unconsciousness. Maybe its sleep. Maybe it's not. I feel like it doesn't matter anymore. I dig my fingers into my sheets and curl into a ball. I'm ready for an escape.

Then I am in a tunnel, running through surge water and ashes from fires long past. The black shadows at the tunnels brick walls bear down on me with the pressure worse than radiation, and the end of the tunnel is a patch of light that I have to get to. I have to. It's calling to me, whispering in my ear, whispering sweet sounding melodies in my ear. "You are alright," it says, "Come back to us." And then I am sprinting, sprinting to nowhere until that light consumes my eyes and the door to the light comes closer but also going farther. Father away. I come to the door but it is running away from me, running so far away. I have to catch it and I'm in the light and then I am-

-the doorbell rings.

My mind almost seems to flout out of a delusion, of a light that is blaring in my ear almost like sound. I crack my eyes open. My closet light is on. I'm sprawled out on the floor on my stomach, my cheek pressed into the carpet, my body layered in sweat. Outside the window, the sky line is bleached dark blue and yellow of the sunset.

The doorbell rings again. I push myself up on shaking arms and stumble to the door. The apartment is still empty. My footsteps echo down the hall. There's an annoying beeping sound coming from Dads office, and I elbow the door open and find out house phone on the hook, a collection of messages shinning red on the receiver. My cell phone is next to it plugged into a charger, buzzing with messages and missed calls.

I flip through my messages, most of them from Marci, but there are some from Bela, the twins, missed calls from the school. There is no call from dad. I collapse into the chair and my mind spots with blurry dots of random color, but I still move my hand around to find the wire to plug my phone back in. I don't want to look at it anymore. I flip through the house phone and delete the messages from school. Most of the messages are from Doolittle, and from San Francisco Pediatric Care. I'm glad I never gave them my cell number.

I click on the messages from Doolittle. Her voice overtakes the office as if she is really here and I have to turn down the volume so it doesn't hurt my ears, "Angie, this is Dr. Doolittle. Please pick up the phone. Please…Angie? Your school called to tell me you never came back to school and you left in such a hurry I never got to understand your problems. Please, I'm worried about you. You could really hurt yourself in the state you're in. Angie…if you don't pick up the phone I will have to involve your father."

The message clicks off and deletes itself. I lean back and breathe steadily in and out. In and out. I can hear the static in the receiver. I can hear the tapping of shoes against the hardwood floor upstairs and the wind rustling the leaves of the houseplants on our window seals. The receiver clicks the next message so loud I flinch against the fine grained upholstery of the office chair. The lights from the hallway blur in my eyes.

"Angie, this is Doolittle again. You need to come back to the office. I'm calling your father. You came here for help and I can give that to you, you just have to come back-"

I press the delete button. The plastic is cold and smooth against my fingers. I lean back again. My pleated skirt and blouse are damp. I peel off each one, and throw them on the floor. The office chair is scratchy. My body is overheating just sitting here.

"Angie, if you don't pick up I'm calling the police-"

I delete that one. The doorbell rings three times and someone knocks loudly. There is muffled talking. I get up and put on the jacket that's throw over the chair by the window, cashmere sweatshirt with patches of leather at the elbows. The materials if soft where it falls to my knees, hiding my spanks I wear under my school skirt. I have to squint in the light of the hall, my eyes closed, feeling down the wall to the living room. I fumble for the light switch.

The light from under the front door blinds me. My hands shake. I unlock the door as someone beats the door yelling "Angie, open up" and the voice is so familiar I want to cry. I unlock the door, and in the blinding light of the hallway stands Marci, her dark eyes serious and her hands on her hips.

But her face changes when she sees me. Relief like a river rushes over her face and she drops her hands and throws them in the air. "What the hell where the police doing at your door? Babe, where have you been all day?"

I didn't know that, and neither of us want to ask or tell what Marci had to say to them to get them to leave. But I don't doubt Marci. She has a way with people that I never had, or dreamed of having. And she came. She is at my doorstep when no one else is, and for that I want to gather her in a bear hug and tell her every inch of how much in love I am with her at this very moment.

"Nowhere,"

Then she drops her hands and launches forward, and I have no time to prepare myself for her tackling me. I slam against the wall as she wraps her arms around me and says, "Babe, I was so worried about you!"

"I'm fine,"

I'm not and be both know it, but the delicate balance of our friendship depends on us noticing but never saying. It's been years since I have shown anyone how hurt I am and Marci will never know the details of how I came to be this way. She looks up at me, deep in the eyes, as if she could see something hidden there.

"The flu, I think."

She nods like that is a valid answer. Maybe it is. I'm not sure how good or how bad I look, but its not within the diameters of our friendship to point out how sick I am. She wanders into my apartment as if it belongs to her, which isn't unusual. Sometimes it feels more like hers than mine anyway.

"So where did you run off to?" she asks, plopping down on the couch and taking one of the little chocolates out of the porcline bowl the maid leaves on our coffee table. I watch her unwrap it carefully and shove it in her mouth.

"The park," I tell her, settling next to her, avoiding the throbbing parts of my back. The grains are digging into my skin. The pain sends waves of fiery pain down my body I lay stiff on the couch.

"That red head in the khakis went after you," she says, but I don't know if it's a question or a comment. I wait for a bit staring absently out the window. The sky line is dark. I can't see anything over the lights of the awakening San Fran night life. She shoves me in the shoulder and my back feels as if it might die, "Well?"

"Jean Grey," I tell her, and I look back to her. Beyond her is our kitchen all stainless steel and gleaming silver. It hurts my eyes. We are in the dark now; no light comes to us except from under the front door. The maid has left out all the clutter on the island from the coffee mugs away. "She's not to be trusted."

Marci smirks, her eyes dancing in the little light that there is. "I told you so. Khakis, you can never trust those things."

There is another time of silence. I keep my breathing steady. I can't feel the eyes anymore, but I can feel Marci's. I am consumed, for a moment, with a strange red light emitting from her. Ripples, like the ripples in water, are burning like confusion. I can feel it, the emotion and the very being within her that radiates out. And I can hear it in her, the whispers of her mind and yearnings of her soul. And suddenly I feel like moving closer, like basking more in the rippling color surrounding her like a halo.

Right now I can feel the eyes, and even though I can't see them I know they are there. And I am consumed completely with the feeling of the beautiful red ripples surrounding her. If the ripples were white, she would look like an angel. Its red laced in uncertainty, and I'm not sure if she is feeling hers or if she is feeling mine. I run my fingers through it, and touch her cheek through the field. It moves around my fingers.

I am aware of every sound. The wind and the dripping of water and Marci's breathing and the slight sound of the hum of air vents. I can see the lines under her eyes that I have never seen before, the light from the door mixing with the blood red of the ripples, the shinning silver of the metal kitchen. I smell the smell of our house, the perfume Marci is wearing, and the very smell of the darkness. And everything is so precise and so extreme that it almost blocks out the pain, the searing hot fire that makes moving difficult and stiff.

And I think I'm dying. I can feel the rippling fire in my soul, but I can also see the rippling color around her. I'm seeing these things and thinking that maybe the color is what hell is like and maybe the feeling is that Marci is the devil. And I can see every shape bright and sharp in my vision, and I know I am going to die.

Behind Marci is another shape that's white and forms like smoke in my vision. It's a white shape, a fog of sorts, a woman of gas and wind. A beautiful woman. The face is the only clear image of her that I can see. Her hair is long and flow, small heart shaped face with a sly smile. Her eyes are trained on me with a familiar look.

Its my mother.

And then Marci crashes her lips against mine. It's a strange, wet on wet feeling, and I don't know what to do. I've never been kissed before, especially not by my best friend, who is a girl. I've never been kissed before. But its not what I thought. I don't know if I should push her away or if I should sit back and see-

-then the red ripples overtake me and I hear a chorus of Marci voice in my mind screaming 'yes yes yes this is so right' and then my mind fades away to another place. I am in the gym back at the school, the edges of my vision blurred like a dream. I see myself, standing coolly against the wall, the twins chattering away, and I feel a strange sensation pulse through my body that I don't know why. And I give me a smile, that smile did things to me that I can't explain, and then suddenly she is in pain, a dodge ball bouncing away, her face twisted in so much agony it physically hurts me.

I yank away from her. Our bodies are meshed together, and I can think straight with our lips unlocked, think how wrong it all is. I try to untangle my body from hers but she is like a weight on tope of me I can't get rid of, her hands gripping my hips.

"Angie-"

"What the hell," I say, "What the hell, what the hell, what the hell."

"Angie, what's wrong?" Her thumbs stroke my hip bones. I pull them out from under my shirt. Her skin, the red ripples, seems to burn my hands as if they were fire. My whole body is on fire. My hands are shaking.

"What are you doing?" I ask, fumbling to the other side of the couch. My mind is racing. The image, the feelings, the moving ripples were so real. So very real that I could have reached out and felt my own skin and feel its warmth. But it wouldn't be possible because I don't know what I look like. I couldn't even imagine it.

"I'm gay, Angie. I thought you already knew…" But it wasn't just the dream but the feelings that came with it. It was the feeling of a different fire in my blood, their blood, whose ever blood it was that I was occupying.

"Knew what?"

"That I'm a lesbian," and I feel a flinch at the word. Every time, all those times what we joked around. All those times that I thought were only back and forth banter and it was all leading up to this, and I can't deny it because I was her. For a moment, when I was in that red cloud of ripple, I was Marci, and I felt everything she felt and heard everything she heard. And I don't know how to explain it and I don't know what to do. But that's the only truth I know right now.

I was in Marci's head.

"Angie please," but I am already up, already righting the wrongs I did to my own body. The pain is too much to take right now, way too much, and I'm so tired. I'm so very tired. "I love you."

I'm out the front door. I'm not sure how I got here but I did. Marci is gripping my left arm but I push away from her and stumble to the stairs. I ignore her yelling for me. I ignore everything. On the street, the ghost woman is smiling slyly at me. I don't stop to stare.

I run and I run.

I run until I can't anymore.

The cathedral stood like a solider against the grey of the skyscrapers. Ancient, gothic, and imposing t seemed to scream 'look at Gods glory' to every passer by so that their attention is caught in its beauty. Its towers and tall and pointed into pikes, gargoyles positioned like demons. The doors are archways hide secrets behind its wood.

The last time I have stepped into St. Paul's it was before mom died. No one could find the energy to go after that, although I'm not an overly religious person now there was a time when I was. There are still memories flouting around my head of when the St. Paul's wasn't so imposing and it was a safe haven. Perhaps that why I came here. I need to be safe.

The left side of the archway doors are open. The stain glass windows above it reflects beautiful light on the dark building across from it. I stride across the street and check the road behind me. Nothing looks suspicious. I wonder how many demons lurk under the gaze of another normal looking person.

I slip into the cathedral, among the sprawling pews and vaulted ceiling that seems to stretch onto heaven. I use to love these ceilings. A statue of Jesus on the cross hung over the front pews where the quire sat. There are only a few heads dotting the pews, some bent low in prayer while others stared up like children at the statue of Jesus. I stare up at him; too, because he no longer looks like he is sleeping. He looks dead.

I turn away and walk among the candles, each one sending more shadows than light. I follow them to a back door of sorts, about as thin as a long cabinet door. The door leads to the above where the stain glass window is, a circuitry old staircase that's seen to many days and is about as narrow as walking up a school locker. I can imagine Father Charles frowning to know I use to come up here with my friends when we were young.

I carefully place my feet while dodging spider webs. The stairs twine like thread in uncertain patterns up the wall. Settling at the begin of old planks thrown down as makeshift floor. Boxes upon boxes are stalked in tall rows full of Christmas decorations, candles, communion trays and other ordainments items. The entire left wall is the stain glass window, swirling patterns of saints and holy missions. Only the corners of the huge wall are actually smelly stucco walls.

I lean against the back wall, staring up at the colorful display of glass. When I was younger, me and my friends would come up here and hide among the boxes. We were middle school age then, and had just moved here.

I move about the space on the planks, careful not to fall through the floor and leave my foot sticking out on the top of the cathedral ceiling. Then I go and lean against the wall across from the stain glass window and let myself get lost in the colors, in a new mystical world that I have never seen before. And its so beautiful.

Then I hear it. A heavy, steady footstep up the stairs. I think about Father Charles, and his heavy footfalls, and leap up with all the pain bearing down on my back, going to settle behind a cardboard box. My heart pounds in my ears that I have been found, that the Father will kick me out now. I try to make my eyes adjust to the new darkness and wait for the impossibly slow steps to enter my darkness.

Step, creak. Step, creak. Step, creak.

How many stairs are there? There can't be that many steps. Step, creak. Of the Father is being careful not to fall through the boards. Step, Creak. Shouldn't the Father be familiar with these steps? Step, creak. Maybe he doesn't come up here that often. Step, step. Or maybe its not the Father at all. Creak.

I glance from behind the box, but past the brilliant stain glass light there is only darkness and through the darkness I see the outline of a man. Just like at the therapy office, the outline is like a halo in the darkness, the ripples from his skin an ethereal grey steel. And the man just stands there, eyes adjusting to the darkness, gazing around at the boxes and the light from the stained-glass window.

He steps forward, into the light, and is bleached red and blue. I can see him clearly now, on older man with tanned skin, slightly wrinkled with salt and peper hair. His eyes are hidden behind crows feet, but shine a deep black. He is wearing black, tight to sow off unnatural muscles and strong frame on his proud face. He might be Russian, in the light, or maybe German.

There is an annoying buzzing in my ear. My hand shoots up, to my earring that's vibrating in my ear. It's a numbing feeling, when your earing literally shakes in your ear. I yank off the back of the earring and pull out the metal piece, holding it shaking in my hand. It moves as if shaken and falls down onto the ground between planks.

I rip out the other earring, glancing back at the man. He is staring in my direction, giving me the chills, smiling softly. I want to move away, but I don't think moving would be a good idea. He might not see me, but only my shadow. You can't see into the darkness if you are in the light.

"You don't have to hide from me," he says, almost amused. I wonder if I know him from somewhere, he doesn't look familiar. He walks towards me and crouches at the very end of the circle of light, closest to me, and I suddenly feel like a child that's hiding after doing something wrong.

I say nothing back.

"Come now, you don't have to hide," he says, swiping his hand through the air, "I know what you are going through, Angeline, because I have gone through it too. We can understand each other."

So I don't know him, because everyone I know calls me Angie. That immediately puts up my guard, as if him saying the same thing as everyone else doesn't already do that. "You don't know anything about me."

He smiles in triumph, as if he thought that I wouldn't say a word back to him, "Oh, but I do. I know about the pretending you do, about how you have to hide your true self from the world, I even know about the pain. Yes, Angeline I know a lot about the pain. I even know things about you that you don't know yourself."

I try not to focus on the word pain, but it rips through me like a harsh reminder. My back aches more than ever. I back away from him even more. I'm not pretending anything, at least I'm not pretending to myself. I know exactly when I am pretending and when I am real, and both Angies are still me anyway, only used at different times. And I don't need him to tell me about myself, because I know myself, my true self and my fake self.

"And what is my true self?" I ask him, still in shadow but my voice is cased in some kind of dull venom because I'm tired of people trying to tell me about myself. I want to hear what he thinks only to prove my point more.

"Your true self is you amplified," He tells me, his eyes lighting up and leaning forward with that stupid smile on his face, "it's you in your purist form. It's you with your abilities front and center as it should be. Your powers are a part of you, and that's how it should be. But people try to cover up your true self, they try to put your power in a cage, and tell you how you should rule over your own life."

There's an irritation knowing at my gut because I don't have any powers, and I'm not in a cage. It's so stupid how a lot of these people come up to me and acting like they understand but they don't. They understand nothing. And it's so frustrating how there's no one to turn to, not even Marci.

"Why don't you come out of the darkness, dear? It doesn't matter what you look like now, our powers bind us as family. You will be accepted here."

How embarrassing, that he doesn't know what my 'power' is. How dumb that he is staring into the darkness at a nameless, faceless ghost, trying to convince her that she is accepted. I bet he is just waiting to find out what my 'power' is, like a child waiting to play with his toy.

Or a tiger, waiting to dewier its prey.

"No," I tell him, flattening my back against the other box, but my back stops as if I have something strapped a few inches on my back. My fingers graze over the growth, "I don't want to bother with you people anymore. I just want to be left alone."

His smile disappears and he presses his lips in a hard line, although I don't think I'm the one he is truly upset with. "Your special dear, you have amassing powers. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Join people who are just like you."

"I don't have amassing powers," I tell him, "Go away."

He stares into the darkness apprehensively, "We could be a team, you and me. We both understand the cruelty of this world, how people hurt you and restrict you."

As he talks, my back aches with another wave of intensive pain. Its worse than it was back at the house, or when the ball hit my back. This is like an animal under my skin tearing at my insides, no longer waiting to come out. Its ready now to come and be free from my skin, and I can hear the gentle tear of my skin, but I cannot feel it. Everything else around that area is numb.

"s-shut up," I tell him, through my teeth, "Please, go away."

But the man did not back down, not by my voice or the obvious venom there, but takes this as an opportune time to keep going, "They have hurt you, haven't they? The others? Well, Angeline, they don't matter any longer. You are more powerful than them, I can feel it in my bones. Together, we can crush them."

"Shut up," I tell him, "I don't know what your talking about."

"We can do this the easy way, Angeline," he says, standing with his face all hard lines and anger, "And I would like to do it that way. I want to help you, as I have done with others before you, but you continuously deny what you are. And if that is he case I will do this the hard way. I have no problem sacrificing for the greater good. Make this easy on yourself, Angeline. Accept the offer."

My back burns rivets into my bones. I'm seeing tears and blurry blotches of white and blue, "What offer?"

"Come with me," he holds out his hand and against the light form the stain glass window he looks like a saint on the old buildings of the vadakin, holding their hands out to whoever choices to accept God, "And allow us to make you into your true self."

I get on my hands and knees and crawl down the plank, trying to take the pressure off my back, "And-if I refuse?"

"Then we will do this the hard way"

I shake my head, trying to breath steadily, but the pain is so bad that it tears down any attempt I have at being calm. Breathing becomes difficult as skin I would use to expand my chest with each breath is expanding on my back, bubbling up like a boiling water balloon ready to burst. I try to scream but its stuck in my throat. I can't breathe; I'm suffocating without the water.

My whole body suddenly convulses, and I'm suddenly staring at the fourth wall, while the man is talking, but I can't hear him. I try to breath, but I can feel my skin tear with every breath. There is a ringing in my ear that's obscuring every other sound. Then, suddenly, everything becomes completely clear and sound, so that I can see the individual grains in the cardboard and the bright stubble on the man's face.

"I can't" I wheeze out, "I can't breat-"

"Then it shall be the hard way," he says, and suddenly the whole room is shaking, I try to stand but a cold metal coil tried to wrap around my waist. I scream, finally, and lean against the far wall- my stomach is hit and I hit the wall and something cold and metal splits me in half.

I am in the air, flouting over the clouds that are not clouds but timbers painted cream. I am suspended in a type of space, the wonderful feeling of flouting half out of space and half in. for a moment, I think I will never hurt again. Am I dead? Am I flying?

Then I hit something, something hard and cold. I grip the long pipes, brass, in weak hands as they spin. The world spins and whirls and twirls. There is screaming, but I don't think it is mine. No, it can't be mine. I glance down through the assortment of brass pipes and tentacles at the pews and the floor that's spinning round and round.

I'm in the chandelier.

I turn in the chandelier, ignoring my back and watching where I came from. There is a person sized hole in the wall, plaster and dry wall falling into the pews below. The man is standing in the hole, a colorful silhouette against the stain glass. His face is encased in metal. A chill runs up my spine, and I shift to get away from him as the chandelier starts to slowly rock back and forth. My hand slips through the brass tentacles. The chandelier lurches sideways and I almost fall through, my leg catching painfully in another bar, ad my hands finding two bars to grip while my butt and torso fall free.

"You could have done this the easy way," The man calls, and his feet hum and vibrate like the earring before, his feet coming off the ground like a ghost of a man how has died and rose again. I can almost imagine that he was Jesus, that he could lift himself into the heavens and right to Gods doorstep. "You could have been everything you dreamed you could be. I could have made you a god."

The chandelier lurches again, and I fight to stay on as my body slips and tangles in the brass bars. A light bulb shatters near me, sending painful pieces of glass showering down into the open air. I hang on for dear life, breathing shallow breaths and my knuckles slipping. Unfathomable amounts of fear and panic surge through me when my leg hits the air.

Heights never used to bother me, and they still don't, not really. But there's something about being suspended by a chandelier that's panicking, and surreal. The edges of my vision are fuzzy blurred like a dream. Is that me who is screaming? Is it my body or someone else's? It feels real, I can feel every sting and pull of skin and burning of muscles. I'm not sure what it is that's keeping me hanging on. Maybe its adrenaline. Maybe its dream juice.

"Stop-"

I look down, down at the floor that's so far away and spot people running in from the little side stairs in the podium. One of them has surprisingly familiar red hair, so that an odd sense of betrayals bubbles in my chest.

They are shouting something, the four people on the ground, but the brass bars suddenly start to twist and turn with an evil creak, and try to tangle around me. A bright, red beam of light sends the chandelier that sends a wave of unfathomable heat against the brass bars heating so that they turn red and burn, burn, burn.

I can't take the heat and the twisting around me like a cocoon, and the screaming of voices around me like a typhoon that's echoing across the vaulted ceilings, and I remind myself that the demons cannot enter the house of God. I remind myself that I am in his keeping as my burns boil into my kin and I can feel it touch my bones.

Then I take a Leap of Faith. I slip from the brass pipes. Ad I fall. And there's no noise, no yelling, nothing but the sound of rushing air. There is nothing but the embrace of space and the falling of the body, with my stomach in my mouth and my fingers laced in the humanity.

Then its like I am embraced with some unknown force, forcing my body to freeze in the air so that I hover there in space for more than a second. Then I flout down, as if from the force of God, by some otherworldly force. I feel the ground on the tumors on my back, but I turn to lie on my side to avoid the ripping. The garnet floor is cold. I try to breath but I am still unable to expand my chest.

There is a hand on my back and another wave of fire rips through me. I push the hand away and scream. With that scream all the pain and frustration comes out. I try to find someplace where the burning, bubbling pain is less. I find none. The ripping seems to echo across the chandelier, louder than the voices and the sounds of metal bending, bending. I settle on my knees, boiled hand running up the growth on my back, the scared and burned to the bones part of my hands sickly wet stuff on my back.

And then I feel it, connection with something. It feels like I connect with arms that I never knew I had. They can move like arms, but I as I do my back explode. Pain, pain, pain. And I do- I have to-I have, push-extend my other pair of arms the ones I never thought I had.

My world is bleached red. My ears stop working. My sensory system seems to have shut down. I can't see or feel or smell or touch. Everything is real. I wonder what's happening on the outside. I wonder why Jean Grey was at the bottom at the cathedral.

I blink through red and think about hell. I think about all those times Father Charles stood on the podium and spoke of it. I never imagined a hell on earth. Perhaps I should have. Maybe if I had known or thought about this before, it wouldn't be so bad now. Maybe then I wouldn't be in such pain. Maybe then I could appreciate Gods punishment as it should be.

But its all numb now. There's a ringing in my ear. Maybe I don't have ears. Not anymore. And I don't think I will ever see anything but the red again, but I'm ok with that. This is nice. At least I don't have to deal with people anymore. I would be happy to flout in this abyss for the rest of my life.

Then-almost as if the red never happened- it all went away. There are colorful dots in my vision. I feel the ghosts of hands over my skin, on my hands, soothing cold flowing into them as if the hands are running, cool water. And when my vision clears I see it, him, a boy encased in gold. Every part of him shinning, from his mop of dark golden hair, his gold hands laying over mine, healing together scars of burns with a bright yellow light.

I stretch out my arms-but its not my arms. My arms don't move from under the boys hands. I stretch them out again, but they don't move. My eyes flick to the golden angel next to me, but he isn't looking at me. He's looking behind me.

I glance sideways, into the glass shattered across the ground. There is a reflection of a girl there, on her knees, blonde hair matted and grey eyes wide, bent over, her hands out in front of her almost as if she is parsing God. And angel of God is kneeling in front of her healing with a yellow light that is reflected in her wide grey eyes. But it was behind the girl, connected to her through an oversized cashmere sweatshirt, which caught my eye.

Plumes of feathers stick up into the air, bones connected like a birds through soft white plumage. The wings extend five feet into the air, one drooping, dripping red and brown with blood. It's a girl who is a fallen angel, covered in blood, being healed by a golden Gabriel.

I extend my arms, but instead the wings bend out at the center and strengthen completely. The feathers clumped together by blood unstick and stretch out like a birds. I feels nice to spread them, nicer then the healing light in my fingers.

I look back at the golden boy. He is moving each one of my fingers up and down, and I can't feel a single move he makes. Its blissful, to be numb. I think it was him, who was taking away the pain.

Jean Grey enters my vision field. Her red hair is tangled and matted with soot and debris. She smiles at me like the sun and her lips move, but I don't hear the words. I don't hear anything. I stare at her leather pants and green tank top and wonder whose side she is on.

Behind us is more people, figures I recognize only for their size, but instead of focusing on them I focus on the blur of color coming towards us. Jean Grey jumps up, hand forward, eyes closed in concentration, and as if she was possessed with the wrath of God the blur moves into the air and forms into a figure with legs that move to fast to be real. They become grey blurs of color.

The blur is a boy only a few years older than me. He is tall and lean, lanky, white hair slicked back and eyes as black as coal. His face shares a certain resemblance to metal man, but much younger and with much more anger etched into the lines of his long, handsome face.

The white haired boy points at me, angry words I can't hear pouring from his lips. I have a feeling that other people are yelling at him as well, I can almost feel the words flying from their lips, his eyes dart back and forth, left and right. Then the world vibrates, everyone covers their ears, the white haired boy spasms, screams, his hands itching to cover his ears as well as the world shakes around me like an earthquake.

And then my vision goes black.


End file.
